Friday 1 April 2011

Jokes that move markets

Farrar at Kiwiblog's excellent April Fool's post:
I understand that a deal has been done over the vacant Labour list spot. Expect an announcement later today that Judith Tizard has accepted the vacant list spot, and will be sworn in on Thursday 7 April.

However in a deal with Labour, she will resign her seat in May, and then Louisa Wall will come in. The other four higher placed list candidates have agreed to also stand aside.

This allows Tizard to make the valedictory speech she was “robbed” of, and also take part in the committee debate on the new Section 92A of the Copyright Act, which she originally authored. She wants to defend the original section, and explain why it was done. After that she will step aside and let Wall in.
The post went live at 7 am; the first comment suggesting April Fool's was at 7:23.

Here's iPredict trading on both Tizard and Wall.



I love the volatility in the Tizard contract. The price ran from 0.50 to 0.82, back down to 0.30, up again to just shy of 0.90, down to 0.32, up to 0.80, then simmered down again to 0.50.

Kudos to Farrar.

6 comments:

  1. Oh dear I didn't even think of iPredict. I could have made a bundle if I had!

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  2. Next year, put up an April Fool's post of something that's true but sounds implausible, then sit on the relevant iPredict market and trade against all the folks who thought you were kidding.

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  3. Great joke and good research!

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  4. Could you use this to make serious bank on a stock exchange? Might be caught by inside trading or market manipulation laws though..

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  5. @Philip: The market isn't thick enough for serious bank - you might have made a couple hundred if you timed everything on that run perfectly.

    iPredict encourages insider trading - we want the most accurate prices as quickly as possible.

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  6. It looks like this joke was plausible. Louisa Wall now at .90c

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